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Pigs and Sea Lions

Pigs 

Back sometime in the mid 80′s I lived in an apartment on Burnside in Portland Oregon.  It was a pretty decent neighborhood with the exception of myself and my roommate.  We, and some of the others in the complex had a habit of staying up too late making noise with our festivities.  But all in all we were for the most part, not too bad.  That all changed when my roommate Steve brought a small pig home to our third story apartment…

Now by no stretch of the imagination was this pig’s destiny to become a family pet.  He was to be fattened, slaughtered and cooked.  Simple as that.  And Steve, a hard edged gun toting oil rig diver was just the guy to carry this out.  Frankly Steve worried me sometimes in some respects but we barely had enough money to pay the rent and the idea of a fat freshly cooked hog on an open pit was a welcome idea to my hungry stomach.  So on the balcony he sat in his bed of straw (which I quickly gathered from a girlfriends Sandy Oregon horse barn), and a big ass bowl of corn feed and oats and the ever problematic bowl of water. More on that later… 

He was a cute little bugger.  Only about 60 lbs. when he was bartered for some of Steve’s miscellaneous tools from the back of his truck.  Our goal was at least 80 lbs.  He would press his pig nose up against the sliding door glass and if you walked around the back of the building you could see him poke his head through the railing and offer up the occasional grunt.  The neighbor girls, unaware of our plans at the time, named him Ernie.  That was cute. But under our breath his true name was uttered for weeks awaiting the big day… Barbecue.

Sea Lions

While I think Doc Hastings is a “pig”, I understand the recent push to allow Sea Lions to be harvested from the locks of Northwest Dams.  They are a problem.  In the grand scheme of nature they aren’t where they are supposed to be and they are extraordinary opportunists.  Even the Northwest states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho are asking for permission to harvest these problem Californians.

Fish managers in Washington, Oregon and Idaho on Monday jointly applied to the National Marine Fisheries Service for permission to use lethal means to remove individual California sea lions preying on salmon and steelhead near Bonneville Dam.

State fishery managers acknowledged it could take years for the federal fishery to review the states’ request.

But at the congressional level, this is a bi-partisan effort between Hastings and Baird.  I will offer that this ‘bi-partisan’ effort is for different reasons.  One political and one out of simple common sense.  More on that later…

More Pigs Sea lions

We progressives complain a lot about Republicans building facts around their beliefs.  And so it is with great regret to hear comments like this from the Humane Society of the United States:

The Humane Society of the United States argues sea lions are being made the scapegoats for failed salmon-recovery efforts. Killing sea lions won’t address lost habitat and poor water quality, according to the Humane Society.

In part, they are right.  We humans have done enough damage to habitat and water quality.  But the sea lions aren’t scapegoats.  They are smart mammals who like the rest of us, just want an easy meal and with the relatively few numbers that have entered the river system have managed to chomp down on roughly 3 percent of the salmon runs through the Columbia River system and even more elsewhere.  And each year they bring more friends Californians.  So it is disheartening for an organization that prides itself in defending animal rights to not understand the consequences of not dealing with the problem now.  Unwittingly we could exasperate a problem through defending a very small portion of a species that likes to sink expensive boats and dine off the hooks of unsuspecting fishermen.

The Furbag Factor: Another motivation to reel your catch quickly into the boat is the “Furbag Factor.” What we lovingly refer to as furbags are the native sea lions which seem to have Salmon fishing….I mean Salmon stealing down to a science. While fishing we see these sea lions cruising just a few feet below the surface like torpedoes waiting for the next hookup. While these sea lions are often not fast enough to catch running Salmon, a tired hooked fish at the surface is easy prey.

The Marine Mammal Protection Act was a necessary action to save a species from extinction, and it worked I would think.

Our Pig

Ernie Barbecue was doing really well.  He was happy in his elevated stall, got lots of attention and fattened up real well.  After weeks of feeding the time was nearing for his ultimate destination.  Our bellies. 

I’m from Eastern Washington.  Although I generally don’t hunt deer or any large animal anymore (except with my motorcycle it seems), I have, and I did enjoy it.  I, unlike many urban dwellers I have met, understand not only the sport, but the necessity of population management and its place in the world we humans have made.  While we could all just go down to the store and swipe the debit card for our food, the dual purpose of hunting in our rural areas are an absolute necessity in preventing disease, suffering, (again as a motorcycle rider) unsafe situations and provides recreational opportunities that I don’t expect everyone reading this to understand.  But our wildlife management folks do an excellent job and are knowledgeable in their duties.  Barbeque’s fate was not exactly similar to these goals but it was one he was relegated to long before he was bartered.  But we waited it out as long as we could.  After all, he was a pretty cool pig. 

Our Other Pig

Doc Hastings political position on sea lions is laughable.  Just a quick look at Washington’s 4th Congressional District and you can see that it doesn’t exactly have a sea lion problem itself.  But what it does have is a series of dams on the lower Snake River that are controversial to certain groups.  And that is politics folks.  “Save Our Dams” bumper stickers are a hot item here in the Mid-Columbia.  And Hastings has scapegoated the sea lions for far more simplistic political reasons than the Humane Society. 

For six years I’ve stopped any action in the U.S. House on Representative McDermott’s dam removal legislation.  One can expect these groups will be pushing hard for action next year.  With Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi on record in support of breaching Northwest dams, those who share my commitment to protecting our dams need to be on high alert.

Folks, these dams aren’t going anywhere right now.  Not because of Doc Hastings, but because it is a bad idea.  Not withstanding the environmental and monetary costs, we are in an era where we now need, more than ever, to look inward at our energy and global warming policies.  Tearing out dams does not make sense.  Restoring habitat both inland and out at sea do.  Talk of removing the lower Snake River Dams do not accomplish that in any fashion. 

And again, in the interest of progressives’ values of not building their own facts around their position, it would be a better political environment if organizations like Save our Wild Salmon were not doing so.  Let there be no question about it, everyone wants to protect the salmon.  Even us in Eastern Washington.  But it is time to stop giving fuel to the forces that would damage those efforts elsewhere while trying to attain that goal.  The dams do not last forever and they will not be rebuilt.  It would be wise to create a political environment that would recognize more current realities of over fishing and habitat along with the long term goals that deal with how we will handle their eventual removal while creating the best river environment we can.  And we need to stop giving political fuel to folks like Hastings who will do little provide realistic solutions other than killing sea lions who don’t even live eat in his district.

Our Ernie Dilemma

After the neighbors complained about the “water” that was killing the plants on the deck below us and the feeding time questions from the neighbors behind our apartment complex, I was finally confronted by the apartment managers.  Apparently Steve had already been confronted…

Manager: “Steve, you have to get rid of that pig”.

Me: “Oh… that is Jim’s Pig”.

Oh, will somebody just step up and take responsibility?